I sat between my father's knees
On Sundays in the sulky,
And watched the full persimmon trees
And snowdrifts that, so bulky,
Made all the gates a job to ope,
The while my father cheered me,
His holy smile but fun and hope,
His praise that so endeared me.

My toes beneath the buffalo,
My mits my mother knitted,
Sometimes were cold as Sunday snow—
His face warmed while it pitied.
Oh, have I ever found in life
A comrade or a brother,
A son, a sweetheart or a wife
As loving as my father?

How moaned with cold the old pine trees
While waiting for the meeting!
How did the sleigh bells' music freeze,
Around the graveyard bleating!
The red-hot stove now roared, now chilled,
And, the black loft a'cresting,
The swallows warmed to chirp and build,
Not knowing Seventh day resting.

How long the sermon and the prayer
And hard my knees a'kneeling,
Except when with me cat's eyes there
Some little girl was stealing!
The singing was a feat at arms,
The tunes all common metre,
But when they broke, that sweetheart's charms
Laughed on me all the sweeter.

And after meeting, when her home
Took boy and man to dinner,
It seemed with her like Christmas come
And both my socks a winner.
Three times we preached from kirk to kirk,
And three stout meals a'heaping,
The stern Commandment not to work
I kept in church a'sleeping.

Then back to town by moonlight glow
The preacher hymns a'humming,
I pushed away the gold-edged snow
And muttered, “bed's a'coming.”
Oh, what is life to one and each—
One Sunday like another?
We travel far to work and preach,
Then slumber with Our Father.